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There are many boardgames about wizards throwing fireballs at things, but very few about the other kind of magic, the kind where skilled performers go on stage and make their audience think that magic might be real. One of those few games is Trickerion, an intensely strategic worker placement game with many details to keep track of and very limited …. well, everything. Between limited resources, limited time and limited space, every decision is tough. Just the way we like it.

“Build a Better Dystopia” is not a phrase you hear every day. Better for who, you will probably ask. Better for you, that’s who! Because who else matters? When you talk about creating a better Dystopia, that means better for you, and that means that you’re in charge of the whole thing. Can you get there?

How often has this happened to you? You are peacefully tending to your farm, and suddenly a hole in the ground opens up and monsters come streaming out. Next you know, a bunch of heroes are charging you a ridiculous fee to take care of the problem and then make off with the monsters’ treasures as well. Being a Villager in Thunderstone is little fun. But you, you’re one of those heroes.

The human race has never been peaceful, competition is written into our genes. Even back in the stone age, when we just started abandoning easily movable tents for more permanent dwellings, there was competition for having the biggest house, highest up the hill. That’s what is happening in Höyük, neolithic clans competing for the finest mansions.

The swordfish season at the Flemish Cap is seven months long, from April to November. That’s the time you have in Swordfish to build up a fishing fleet and go out to catch fish. Some of you will get rich, others will get wet when their boats go down in a storm. It’s not an easy life as a swordfish fisher.

There once was an onmyo master, a teller of fortune and summoner of spirits. This onmyo master had two children, both thinking only they deserve to inherit his title. And so the two children fight, with the spirits they summon, over who is the greater summoner and thus deserving of the title. That’s the short story behind the Onitama, an abstract game that barely takes longer than telling its story.